Tag Archives: dough

While Gracen napped this afternoon, I decided to finally put the bag of marshmallows I’ve been carting around for the last couple of weeks to good use. And oh my word, am I ever glad I did!

I originally came across this post via Pinterest and immediately fell in love with the idea of marshmallow dough. As insane as it sounds, I often find myself thinking, hmmm…. what can we mix with cornstarch today? (Totally crazy, I know.) We’ve tried water, shampoo, and hair gel, but I had never thought of marshmallow goo before! I filed the idea away and knew it would make for an extra special day one day soon. Today, when it came time to make it, rather than retrieving my computer from the other end of the house and pulling up the recipe, I decided to wing it. And I must say, it turned out really well. Turns out that our dough is missing 2 of the ingredients in the original recipe, but I think it would turn out well either way. The finished product is soft to the touch, yet firm, tacky, but not so sticky that it makes a mess of your hands, and it smells absolutely amazing – like Rice Krispie treats or cotton candy.

With the dough made, I set out a few fun things to explore it with on Grae’s little picnic table outside. Included were some sundae cups and spoons, a knife, some heart-shaped cookie cutters, some birthday candles, some sugar crystals, and some candy sprinkles. Then it was time to wait for the little miss to wake up.

I was so anxious for her to discover the play invitation I’d set up that it was just my luck that she’d ask to stay in her room for quiet play time upon waking up, rather than coming out and getting her afternoon started like she normally does. ☺ When she did come out of her room though, she spotted the marshmallow dough station through the window almost immediately. Her eyes lit up with excitement and curiosity and she was off to play.

After a little bit of cutting and pulling, it was straight to the candy sprinkles – and who can blame her really? They’re just so darn colourful and fun-looking!

Of course, what pairs better with sprinkles than birthday candles?

I think she may be getting anxious for the birthday party that’s happening next weekend…

The really cool thing about marshmallow dough is that other than being soft and smooth and smelling {and tasting!} delicious, it has an incredible amount of stretch. It can be pulled and pulled and pulled without breaking. Even when you’re trying very hard, as Miss G clearly is in this photo. ☺

Though it’s quite a bit firmer and stickier than a regular play dough, it still cuts well with cookie cutters, which Grae was pleased about.

And the plus side to the slightly sticky nature of the dough is that candy sprinkles cling to it really well.

Next up was some cutting practice. Gracen really enjoys cutting, and I really should have brought out a sharper knife for her to continue practicing with, but a butter knife did work. Because the dough is quite heavy, it provides a good amount of resistance, which is great for building up those little hand muscles.

Gracen loved exploring marshmallow dough, and though I really don’t want her eating corn-syrup filled marshmallows just yet, the beauty of this play material is that it is fully edible, so you don’t have to worry about little ones who are inclined to put things in their mouths getting sick if they do sneak a taste.

One thing to keep in mind is that because marshmallow goo eventually does set, you’re really only guaranteed one day of supple, mouldable dough. For us, this wasn’t a issue as Grae played with it for a good long time and I felt we got more than enough play out of it to be worth the cost of the ingredients and the effort that went into making it.

If you’d like to make your own batch (which you certainly should!), here’s our modified version…

Over medium heat, melt coconut oil in a pot. Once liquid, add the entire bag of marshmallows. Stir frequently until marshmallows are completely melted.

Working quickly, divide the marshmallow mixture into four bowls (approximately 1 cup per bowl) and stir in 3 drops of liquid food colouring into each. Add 3/4 of a cup of cornstarch to each bowl to start. Using a spoon, stir vigorously until marshmallow goo and cornstarch begin to come together. Use your hands to knead in the extra cornflour once the dough is cool enough to handle. If needed, add an extra 1/4 of cornstarch to each bowl to firm up the dough, however, be careful not to add too much as the dough will become overly hard.

Enjoy!

♥

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Have you every come home from a shopping trip with surprise item in your bags? That’s exactly what happened with this hair gel… I do not use hair gel. Brad does not use hair gel. No one in our house uses hair gel. Yet after returning home from a grocery shopping trip with Miss G a few weeks ago, there it was in one of our bags. My immediate thought was, ‘Crap! Did we accidentally steal this?!’ I checked the bill and nope, we’d paid for it. How it got through the checkout and into our bags, I have no idea.

Anyways, knowing that we wouldn’t be using it in our hair anytime soon, I decided we’d use it for some sort of play. And when nothing brilliant had come to mind in a few week’s time, I decided that we’d mix it with cornstarch. Because cornstarch mixed with any sort of liquid = cool, right?

It took some serious mixing to bring the ingredients together first, then it took some serious kneading to smooth it out and soften it up. The result, however, was quite lovely. Pillowy soft and lightweight, this dough behaves a lot like ooblek does. When handled gently and moved slowly, it’s stretchy and elastic, and when handled more abruptly, it breaks off in chunks.

Gracen wanted to play with it immediately, so together we collected some bowls, silicon moulds, and plastic utensils and brought everything outside to play with.

She began exploring her new dough by sinking her hands into it, squishing it between her fingers, and poking holes into it…

Then it was time to fill all of the containers with “oatmeal”.

With a good breakfast in our tummies, it was time for dessert. ☺ The dough rolls into balls really nicely, so Miss G turned our ball collection into cupcakes with cherries on top.

When we were done with our first round of dessert, Gracen shouted, “Cookies next!” and took off into the house running. She returned with a tray of creative table goodies – buttons, pony beads, straw pieces, gems, and sparkly pompoms. I was put in charge of forming the cookies and she was in charge of decorating.

To show that we had eaten the cookies all up, Miss G crumbled them all into a bowl.

The cool part was that as soon as she was done, the crumbles had already started melting together to form one mass.

This was such a fun new dough to explore and play with. One thing we did notice is that after being played with for an hour, it had dried quite a bit. It definitely can be played with again, but this is not the type of dough you’ll want to leave out for very long when not in use.

Oobleck Dough

1 cup hair gel

1/2 cup water

food colouring (optional)

2 cups corn starch

Mix the wet ingredients together. Add in the cornstarch and mix really well. Once the dough comes together in a mass, knead until smooth and soft.

Play!

♥

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This afternoon Gracen and I tried out a new sensory material originally created by Jessie of Play Create Explore (if you’re a parent and haven’t checked out her blog before, you definitely should – she’s got hundreds of sensory play ideas, fun bath ideas, and tons more) and it was AWESOME.

The ingredients seem a little strange, but they work perfectly together to create a hard ice cream-looking texture. The main two ingredients are cornstarch and conditioner – yes, hair conditioner – the cheapest variety you can find. The other stuff is just food colouring and cheap imitation extracts to make it look and smell more like real ice cream.

We decided on making 3 ‘flavours’ (coconut, strawberry, and hazelnut), Gracen started us off by putting an equal amount of conditioner in 3 bowls.

Then she added our food colouring – none for coconut, red for strawberry, and a combination of red, green, and yellow for the hazelnut.

Then she added a generous pour of extract into each of the bowls…

And mixed them up.

One thing I will say is that we should have spend a little more time looking for an unscented {or at least a very lightly scented} conditioner. At $1.28, the price was certainly right, but the strong ‘fresh’ scent gave our imitation extracts a serious run for their money. Even something food scented would have been better… Next time we’ll look for something of the strawberry / coconut / mango variety.

Next up was the messy part… Mixing the cornstarch into the conditioner mixture.

After gently folding and blending the cornstarch and conditioner together, this was the end result.

Isn’t it crazy how much it looks like REAL hard ice cream?!

Here’s a close up view.

And as long as it’s handled like hard ice cream usually is (not rolled or smoothed over too much – thanks for the tip, Jessie!), it scoops perfectly – just as ice cream does. ☺

We followed Play Create Explore‘s ratios exactly, so please visit the original post here. The amounts we used for these batches, along with details on the colouring and extracts are as follows:

Coconut Ice Cream Dough

1/2 cup of cheap hair conditioner

1 cup of cornstarch

1 tablespoon of imitation coconut extract

Strawberry Ice Cream Dough

1/2 cup of cheap hair conditioner

1 cup of cornstarch

6 drops of red food colouring

1 tablespoon of imitation strawberry extract

Hazelnut Ice Cream Dough

1/2 cup of cheap hair conditioner

1 cup of cornstarch

4 drops of red food colouring

4 drops of green food colouring

12 drops of yellow food colouring

1 tablespoon of imitation hazelnut extract

Enjoy!

♥

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